A variety of injuries and conditions require repair of soft tissue damage, or reattachment of soft tissue to bone and/or surrounding tissue. For example, when otherwise healthy tissue has been torn away from a bone, such as a shoulder rotator cuff tendon being partially or completely torn from a humerus (a rotator cuff tear), surgery is often required to reattach the tissue to the bone, to allow healing and reattachment to occur. A number of devices and methods have been developed for performing these surgical repairs, some of the more successful methods include the use of suture anchors, which typically include an anchor body having one or more suture attachment features, and a tissue or bone engaging feature for retaining the suture anchor within or adjacent to the tissue or bone. Depending on the specific injury, one or more suture anchors connected to, or interconnected by, one or more segments of suture, is used to perform the repair.
Surgery can also be required when a tear occurs in the substance of a single type of tissue, for example in the meniscus of the knee (a meniscal tear). One method of repairing such a tear is to stitch it closed by passing a length of suture through the tissue and tying the suture. Suture can also be used in conjunction with one or more suture anchors to repair such tissue tears. Sutures can be fastened to suture anchors and to tissue using knots tied by the surgeon during a repair procedure. In minimally invasive procedures, however, the surgeon must use tools inserted through a small diameter cannula or access portal, which can make the knotting process difficult and tedious.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved methods and devices for repairing torn or damaged tissue, and in particular for methods and devices suitable for arthroscopic repair of torn or otherwise damaged tissue using suture anchors.